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Monday, February 25, 2013

DOJ Memo Admits Proposed Gun Control Measures Will Fail

The NRA was able to get hold of a Department of Justice memorandum that acknowledges that the proposed gun legislation will have negligible impact, if any, on the use of firearms in crimes; and suggests that only registration and massive forced "buybacks" would work. From Yahoo News (h/t Drudge):

The memo, under the name of one of the Justice Department's leading crime researchers, critiques the effectiveness of gun control proposals, including some of President Barack Obama's. A Justice Department official called the memo an unfinished review of gun violence research and said it does not represent administration policy.

The memo says requiring background checks for more gun purchases could help, but also could lead to more illicit weapons sales. It says banning assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines produced in the future but exempting those already owned by the public, as Obama has proposed, would have limited impact because people now own so many of those items.

It also says that even total elimination of assault weapons would have little overall effect on gun killings because assault weapons account for a limited proportion of those crimes.

The nine-page document says the success of universal background checks would depend in part on "requiring gun registration," and says gun buybacks would not be effective "unless massive and coupled with a ban."